With recent attempts to use the cutaneous sense as a sensory channel in place of vision, it has become of interest to learn what limits the form sensing capabilities of touch as compared with vision. Although a number of factors would seem to limit the tactile perception of form, the investigator has argued the position that many of the facts relating to tactile form perception are understandable strictly in terms of the limited spatial resolution of the cutaneous sense. Should this position prove false with experimental testing, the way in which it fails should be useful in developing a more complete understanding of tactile perception. The basic strategy of most of the experiments is to compare form perception using touch with that using foveal vision under conditions where vision, by hypothesis, mimics touch - namely, viewing patterns which have been subjected to optical low-pass spatial filtering. In addition to the broader issue, the experiments address a number of specific issues such as typographical determinants of tangibility (legibility), the superior tangibility of braille characters, the existence of and conditions for cutaneous hyperacuity, and the tactile perception of texture.